カラントの喫茶店

ERASED (僕だけがいない街)

28/07/2021

(I will not include blatant spoilers but if you have not seen the anime you may not want to read this).

I watched the anime ERASED recently. I more or less binged it, but I did it in two parts throughout the day. I cried a lot. Overall I thought it was very good. It’sbeen a few days now and I still find myself thinking about it a fair bit, which I think is the clearest sign a work was effective. I thought the ending left a bit to be desired though, it felt rather sudden.

Kayo-chan stole the show of course, I never thought something could be heartmelting and heartrending at the same time but I thought wrong. I said it already, but I cried a lot. It made me feel terrible for all the times I had taken things like having a loving family for granted. It really is really important to keep in mind all the things you do have in your life, not just what you’re lacking…

On the Japanese side I enjoyed the charming, to my foreign ear, Hokkaido dialect, particularly したっけ as a goodbye, translated as “laters” in my subtitles. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the Japanese title was the title of Kayo’s poem. Which is honestly a way better name, “ERASED” doesn’t really feel like it fits the mood of the anime in my mind. Why not go with “The town where only I don’t exist”? I think it’s fine to have a longer title if the title is better for it.

P.S. There was a bonus manga volume released that fills in some events during the timeskip, I’d recommend giving it a read!